unity-design team mailing list archive

[Brandon Watkins <bwat47@xxxxxxxxx>]

I agree, current behavior is terribly confusing. I believe I made a similar
post to the ayatana list when 11.04 came out. There really needs to be
preditctable behavior when clicking on an item that has multiple instances.

Personally, I'd favor an approach similar to the windows 7 superbar or
avant window navigator, where clicking on an item that has multiple
instances brings up clickable thumbnails (or in awn's case, it brings up
just a clickable window title.)

On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 1:51 AM, mm <manymachinesix@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I can't seem to figure out the reasoning behind the behavior of
> left-clicking a launcher icon when there are multiple instances of a
> program running. It is currently quite confusing. As it is now, there
> are at least five different things that happen when you click the
> launcher:
>
> #1- If there are multiple instances of a program running and the focus
> is already on one instance, then all instances are shown in scale mode
> and the user can pick one.
>
> #2- If there are multiple instances of a program running, the focus is
> not on any of them, and they are unminimized, then all instances are
> brought forward above all other windows, the last used one to the top.
> *Worthy of note is what happens if you go a step further: if the one
> just brought into focus is minimized or closed, then the others return
> to their previous positions (behind other programs' windows if opened
> already or gone from sight if minimized). This behavior can cause some
> really weird things to happen, like windows being automatically
> minimized hours after they were brought back on screen.
>
> #3- If there are multiple instances of a program running, the focus is
> not on any of them, and some are minimized, then only the unminimized
> ones will be brought forward – even if the last one used was a
> minimized one. The same weird behavior of windows changing positions
> later also applies here.
>
> #4 - If there are multiple instances of a program running and all
> instances are minimized, they are all brought forward - sort of. They
> are all opened and displayed, but if there are any windows from
> another program open, only a single one of them (the last one
> minimized) will be in front of those other programs' windows. Unlike
> in cases #2 and #3, if that one window is minimized/closed, the others
> stay sitting there.
>
> #5 - If there are multiple instances of a program running and all
> instances are minimized, but you click the icon from a workspace
> without any of the programs running, the view is first shifted to the
> workspace in which the last instance was minimized and that single
> instance is opened – the others stay minimized. This directly
> contradicts what we see happen in #4.
>
> I explained all this in more (probably too much) detail here:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/923228
>
> Why can't scale be invoked every single time there are multiple
> instances of a program open? Or, better, just show the windows on the
> same workspace, which would fit better with the new alt-tab behavior.
> This would make the outcome of clicking on the launcher not only
> simpler to understand, but also much more usable, as users could
> easily choose the window they wish without clicking several times and
> causing random unwanted windows to be brought forward.
>
> Apologies if something like this has been talked about before, but I
> couldn't find anything exactly the same, and the behavior has been
> bugging me for a while.
>
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> Aibara
>
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